The Unicorn Hunt - Dorothy Dunnett [117]
‘She has promised?’
‘She has promised nothing. But she seems to be rearing the child.’
‘Seems? Aren’t you sure? Are you doing nothing to find it and –’
Nicholas de Fleury rose, knocking over the ale. He said, ‘All that can be done, I am doing. I am indebted to Margot. I think we should go.’
Gregorio rose. ‘Is it even baptised?’ he said. ‘Godscalc will –’
The other man said, ‘It has been done.’ The tattered cloak lay on the floor. He stepped over and left it.
‘He has a name?’ Gregorio said. He looked for a softening.
‘Yes,’ said Nicholas de Fleury. ‘Gelis chose it. Her son is called Jordan.’
Within a day, there was no one in Bruges who did not know that Nicholas vander Poele, who now called himself de Fleury, was back.
He paid, first, the lying family calls, in which he described how the poor lady Lucia died, and reconciled the van Borselens, the Gruuthuse, the Duchess Margaret in Hesdin and the Dowager Duchess in Nieppe with an account of his visit to Gelis, and her good health and witty impatience. He predicted the birth would be early, which surprised very few, and further let it be known that until then his wife wanted seclusion.
Having designed to say little to Tilde, he found himself detained by feverish questions, as if the child coming to Gelis was in some way a twin of the one Tilde had lost. It needed some skill to respond. He found he had no need to talk of Lucia or Diniz: Godscalc had mended those fences. Or so it would seem.
Godscalc, Tobie and Julius accepted the tale of his visit to Gelis, as did Diniz and Catherine, and he did not mention having met the vicomte de Ribérac, who had left town again.
The house was full of commiserating women, but he was out on business most of the time.
He went to see Tommaso Portinari, and dressed for it. Tommaso’s mouth did not open, but his clerk’s did. When they drank, it was from the gold cups. He found out what was happening with alum, and that he needn’t trouble refounding his courier service, for Metteneye and Adorne had already established one. He knew that already.
He learned that, in Tommaso’s opinion, he had been foolish to recall his Alexandria agent, with the Vatachino spoiling deals everywhere and the Ottoman army roving the sea. Nicholas had personally annoyed the last Sultan. He was lucky to have le Grant keeping this one so sweet. Nicholas should speak to young Nerio of Trebizond, and Michael Alighieri the Florentine merchant. The ducal court was full of Trapezuntines with news of the Orient and pretty perfumes and manners. It would be a change from the northern wilds and their customs.
He went to the ducal court. He sent word to the Chancellor Hugonet, and the Duke himself received him in the Caudenberg Palace at Brussels. He took care to please him, deployed his excellent Greek to please others, and left privately satisfied.
He went to St Omer, and told Astorre he had to continue in the Duke’s service or get out. They had words, but Astorre agreed to stay for a year.
He went to Antwerp on business to do with his ships, and took the chance to visit the office which Jordan de Ribérac had so inopportunely discovered. When he left, two men had been dismissed and one beaten: no more indiscretions, he thought, would occur.
In the second week of March, returning from another visit to Brussels, he found the printing machines had arrived. The space they were to occupy was prepared, but of course John le Grant was not present as planned: the reminder was irritating. So was Tobie’s absence of interest. The manuscripts to be printed lay half compiled about his room or Godscalc’s while priest and doctor attended to Tilde. Since he could not complain about that, Nicholas set to and began to collate them himself, taking clerks from the counting-house, which upset Gregorio.
When Gregorio entered his room, Nicholas assumed he, too, had come with a grievance. If he had, he didn’t produce it at once. He said, ‘Did you hear? Adorne is back from Scotland with Metteneye. They landed and rode home tonight with a retinue.’
‘Was he limping?’ said Nicholas.